At the end of a brief chat last Wednesday, the "Fable II" designer told me a little bit about what he's up to after "Fable II" ships next month.

"I won't tell you what we're doing next; I'm not allowed to," he smiled. "But it's a single, pure thought and so simple that it's actually far more terrifying…"

Molyneux clearly wanted to say more, but now was not the time. Lessons learned from "Fable" and "Fable II" are directly influencing his approach.

"I think for a long time I mistook the number of features in a game for how good the game will be," he said. "I've come to realize that's wrong. I've got a great analogy. I think a lot of my games in the past, I've been like a cook [and I] just keep shoving ingredients in the pot thinking 'oh, I need more of this, more of that.' I never tasted it, and then normally it tasted a bit weird at the end. And now what I've realized is it's not the number of features you've got in the game, it's the way those features work together."